


In Plain Sight

by Goldberry



Series: A Series of Promises [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 20:31:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldberry/pseuds/Goldberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Someday, when I can stand in front of their graves in plain sight."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Plain Sight

The field where they died is a meadow now, green growing over the rubble like a blanket over old wounds. Tiny wildflowers dot the landscape and birds wing overhead but he does not move out from the tree line for a long time, inherently unable to move out into the open and risk being seen. He’d spent the last fours years hiding. It’s a tough habit to break, even for them.   
  
He thinks of them often, more often then he revealed to Tenten on those first long nights when everything was too dark and even he couldn’t see what path they should take. The obviousness of their loss is less now but it catches him every now and then, like today. Two flat, heavy stones mark their graves about a hundred yards away and he can not go to them. He’s sees the stones only in his mind’s eye, two rocks he and Tenten had found among the mortar and bricks of decimated buildings, remnants of Konoha itself. There were no words written on them, a final web of safety so that no one would disturb their graves, would not even know two of the finest ninja to ever live were buried there. Soon enough the grass would grow up around the markers and Maito Gai and Rock Lee would be lost in that field of new life.   
  
Neji stands there and thinks it’s not such a bad end to lives well-lived, if all too short.   
  
“Sleep well,” he tells them quietly and turns from the bright field back into the shadows.   
  


* * *

  
  
He’s recognized in the streets the next day.   
  
He can feel the man’s sudden insight, a light switch flipped, and Neji keeps walking slowly, apparently oblivious. He lead’s Pain’s informant out of the village and only when he’s sure they’re far enough away does he turn and face him there in the middle of the road.   
  
The man grins, certain now in the face of Neji’s pale eyes.   
  
“So you are a Hyuuga.”  
  
“The last,” Neji replies coldly. He’s rearranging the man’s chakra circuits in his mind, efficiently planning murder. The spy shakes his head.   
  
“Not the last. There was a child, some say. Not everyone believes the fire took the brat.” He spits and then glances at Neji, considering. “Tell me where he is and Pain might let you live. Otherwise, I’ll be taking you.”  
  
Neji settles his weight back on his feet. “Try,” he murmurs.   
  
And like one not raised in the height of the shinobi kingdoms, the fool rushes to close with a Hyuuga, whose every technique is based around a powerhouse of close combat. It takes only one solid push of Neji’s palm and a moment later he rolls the corpse into the ditch on the side of the road.   
  
He heads on to the next town and doesn’t look back.   
  


* * *

  
  
He waits until he’s too restless to wait any more before going into the forest. He’d memorized the way a long time ago and follows an imaginary path around trees, over rivers, sometimes doubling backwards in curves that didn’t exist but to him. Everything in him strains to move forward but he holds on to his control, forcing himself to keep the same steady pace, his eyes noting the hidden wires, the covered traps.   
  
He is taut as a bowstring by the time the cabin comes into view and for a moment he can only stand there, staring at it, locked up inside.   
  
“Uncle Neji!” The sweet, happy voice of his nephew bubbles over him as the child comes running around the corner of the house. He’s four years old now with his mother’s black hair and gray eyes but his grin is all Naruto’s.   
  
Neji crouches down slowly and Ran half-crashes into him, throwing two short, chubby arms around his neck and getting dirt in his hair.   
  
Neji breathes again.   
  
“Mama said you might come today! She said we can have _noodles_!”  
  
“Where is your mother?” he asks, lifting the boy in his arms, unable to rest until he knows for certain. The boy turns his head and… there she is, coming towards them, a basket of laundry in her arms. She stops when she sees him, reading him instantly, and they share a whole conversation in a glance. He walks forward until they are separated by mere inches and looks down into her open, honest face.   
  
“You found us,” she says, as if it’s the first time, and her smile eases the heavy weight in his chest. She calmly threads an arm through his, the laundry basket balanced on her hip as they start again for the house. “You’re just in time for dinner.”  
  
“Noodles!” Ran shrieks by his ear, wriggling in his hold.   
  
And everything is right again. There are no gravestones, no bodies alongside the road, no aching fear that one day he would come there and the two most important things in his life would be gone.  
  
“Everything’s alright,” Tenten says softly, for him alone. She hugs his arm to her briefly. “We’re here.”  
  
Everything’s alright.  
  


* * *

  
  
For Ranmaru’s sake, they are Mother and Uncle and they are very careful not to touch often in front of him. Neji doesn’t remember why they’d first started it but it seemed too much for a child to understand that his mother wasn’t really his mother and that his father had died before he was born. So he and Tenten are careful around him. Always, Ran would come first. They need no agreement on that. It was the way it was and always would be.   
  
But when the child is put to bed and it is just the two of them, Neji can’t help but put his arms around her just to breathe in the familiar scent of her hair, to feel her alive and real beside him.   
  
“What happened?” she whispers, her fingers curling into his long hair.   
  
He can’t answer – not because he doesn’t want to but because he barely knows himself. She seems to understand this and doesn’t push him, just stands quietly in the circle of his arms, their hearts beating steadily in the dark.   
  


* * *

  
  
“Uncle Neji, will you take me with you?”  
  
Neji glances over, slightly surprised, to find his nephew watching him earnestly. They’re sitting in the front room of the cabin while Tenten rattles things in the kitchen and pretends not to listen.   
  
“Where do you want to go?” Neji asks instead, shifting a little as Ran gets up from the floor and crawls up into his lap, settling himself easily into the crook of Neji’s arm against his chest. Neji has never been at ease around children but there is something about Ran’s total and complete trust in him that makes him want to try harder, to change and become what Ran sees with his coin-bright eyes.   
  
“Mountains,” Ran answers promptly. “Like in my book. Momma says they’re really tall and there’s snow you can play in.” He turns his head up suddenly. “Is that true?”  
  
Neji nods. “Yes, that’s true.”  
  
“Good,” Ran says, with all the decisiveness of his four years. “I want to see it.”  
  
Neji leans back in the chair and Ran puts his head down, content to lay sprawled over Neji’s lap.   
  
“Then I’ll take you to the mountains, Ran, one day.” _When things are better, when we no longer have to hide here and our world is safe again. When I can stand in front of their graves in plain sight._  
  
“Promise?”  
  
Neji closes his eyes.   
  
“I promise.”   
  
**END.**


End file.
